De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage

Unfortunately, this was another book from the CBC list of the "100 Novels That Make You Proud To Be Canadian" that I really didn't like. At this point, the tally is a few books I've liked a lot, several that were meh, and almost as many that I strongly disliked. Unfortunately, De Niro's Game was one of the latter, and I can say that whoever compiled this collection has vastly different taste from mine. I'd drop the list, but I'd like to keep some Canadian content in my reading cycle. If you know of a better list of Canadian books, send it my way!

This was a book that I pushed through to the end based on spite, wanting to write this review. And also because it was relatively short.

My problems with the book are pretty much twofold. One, there are an absolutely inordinate number of references to women's tits, for no particular reason. Also legs. Also some sexual coercion and possibly rape. And none of that was the point of the book, taken seriously by the book, it was just background noise in the lives of these young men. I get that they're young men. I get that they're horny. Just trust me that even by those standards, it was excessive, like the author worried we'd forget that they were horny, even in the middle of a war zone, if he didn't mention women's breasts or thighs every other page.

The second problem was just the writing. This was so overwritten, folks. So, so, so overwritten. Sentences that had so much unrelated imagery, it practically gave me a headache. Here's an example:

"White and red meat fell from above, pieces were cut, crushed, banged, cut again, ground, put in paper bags and handed to the women in line, women in black, with melodramatic oil-painted faces, in churchgoer submissive positions, in Halloween horrors, in cannibal hunger for crucifix flesh, in menstrual cramps of virgin saints, in castrated hermetic positions, on their knees and at the mercy of knives and illiterate butchers."

I mean...I don't even know what to do with this. I just don't.

The topic of this book is interesting, but unfortunately how it is about it is all tits, thighs, and prose that made me wince. It's unfortunate. I've been told that a friend really liked a later book by this author, so maybe Hage got it all out of his system with this one?

It's the story of two young men in wartorn Beirut. Many members of their families have been killed by shelling. The city itself has its own dangers, with the militia willing to enforce itself with guns and violence, and the young men doing no less. One, George, joins the semi-military group, the other, the narrator does not, and dreams of leaving Lebanon for France. He doesn't really do a lot to do that, though, just talks about it a lot. The two try to defraud the casino controlled by the military, that doesn't go well. Other things don't go well.

There are ways in which this could have been really compelling. There are ways that this could have engaged with paralysis in the middle of overwhelming odds. There are ways this could have talked about breasts less and still left us in no doubt that this was a young heterosexual man. But no.

This book was not for me. Many books on this particular list of Canadian novels have not been for me. Someday, I'll do my own, although I certainly don't specialize in Canadian fiction.